Ensuring Future Success by Investing in Students

As we seek to help Latino students enter the job force with jobs that are higher paying, it is imperative that the options for higher education after high school within the different career options are presented to the students in their early high school days. Students can explore their options through the help of the high school’s academic counseling so they have a road map to follow when they graduate. The Senate Bill #451 in California was an attempt to take the position of the school counselor and expand it, having them to put more focus on vocational and career counseling in addition to academic counseling. There was, however, not enough resources that were adequate to help them to make this change that was needed. Because of the ways that the public schools receive their funding, the opportunities presented to each school was not the same. It could potentially be a very positive resource to the students, though, if the funding was the same across the board.

Public school funding varies based on the location of the school. The higher income communities tend to receive more funding in comparison to the lower income communities due to the public funds sources. Public schools in the United States receive their funding from local, state, and federal sources. Local property taxes provides around half of the funds, though, making the different communities have discrepancies. Opportunities for students receiving these resources that are beneficial decrease as the funding decreases.

The discrepancies in public school funding creates limits on the school resources that can be provided which affects the students attending the low income schools greatly. For the low income communities, the counseling is even more important to provide the students options for them to follow once they graduate. Fortunately, there are some programs that have been put in place by stakeholders in the communities that can help the students to learn about the opportunities of higher education and help them to become leaders in the community.

A quick online search will bring up a few of these programs that are available.